Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

It's probably clearer if you play the original Mother but the games are a parody of the original Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest didn't have visible party members until DQ8.

@Grumblevolcano Maybe. Overall I'd say news wise we'll get an Indie World, a Splatoon 3 Direct, a new trailer for Scarlet/Violet, the Mario Kart DLC, and probably a shadow drop of Kirby's Dream Buffet.

I also think the September Direct will be mid to late September, if not early October.

@Solaine I might give it another go sometime soon then.

In Indiana all week again for my job. We recently acquired a new 4th plant near the Ohio/Indiana border and they don't have any metrology engineers or even CMM programmers. Been down here half a dozen times now in the last several months. Hotel staff knows me by name!

But ahhhh... Idk what I'd do without my Switch. I don't even mind coming down here as long as I can play Monster Hunter back at the hotel

@JaxonH nice, very much channelling that original Switch trailer!

How do you carry the Dock BTW? Do you have a dedicated case or just shove it in your bag?

@Buizel
Waterfield case. It fits dock, HDMI cable, power charger, pro controller in protective case, Switch in Hori Slim case, extra joycon in grip, extra dual charger for Pro Controller/phone + Steamdeck, and charge cables. Has a shoulder strap making it easy to carry while pulling larger luggage suitcase bag by extendable handle.

@IceClimbers it possible Nintendo could tie the wave 2 DLC of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, since 2022 is Mario Kart 30th anniversary.

@JaxonH Ah nice. Not quite what I'm after (I had a hard case for the v1 model which worked great, but it doesn't fit the OLED), but good to see that working for you.

@Buizel
Ya, it fits the Hori Slim Case with Switch inside of it, so the Switch OLED is protected inside the more firm and hard Hori Slim case, which is then tucked into the pocket of the leather shoulder bag. It's stylish, not too big, yet fits everything you need for the deluxe docked experience. Bonus of using the Hori Slim Case is, it fits in my back left jeans pocket (which will or won't work depending on how tight and elastic your jeans are and how big their back pockets are, but for me it does, which is fantastic when going to work every day. Frees up both hands for coffee, keys and grabbing badge in wallet to get in the building.

Could check Waterfield website and see if they have something more to your liking. They make really nice bags, pouches and cases for tech, including Switch and Steamdeck.

Been playing through Live A Live. I am maybe 5ish hours in now? This was enough time to finish three of the stories. I did Imperial China first, and I feel like this maybe set too high a bar for the rest of the chapters. It feels really ahead of it's time, the new updated visuals pop so hard on the SWOLED screen, it is really inspired in how it finds ways of making it's genre make sense as a turn based JRPG and just in general it is a cool kung fu movie.

The next chapter I played was Prehistory, this was probably my least favourite of the chapters I have played so far. It is basically a very of it's time turn based JRPG, just with this caveman setting. It was never really as visually interesting as the first chapter, with much of it taking place in caves and a wasteland and just seemed to have none of the inspiration of that Imperial China chapter. I also just generally felt less engaged in this chapter, as for obvious reasons, there is no dialogue but the chapter is also really, really, weird and so I mostly just spent my time feeling lost.

Then finally I played the Present Day Chapter. This one is over very quickly, and still doesn't meet the standard of Imperial China, but I do think this was a step up from Prehistory. Much more varied and interesting visuals and I just think it's a weird and wonderful idea to try and turn your standard fighting game of that era into a turn based JRPG.

I was hoping that'd be the case. The visuals look extremely vibrant.

That alone might be enough to sell me on the game if I like the demo.

Yeah, I will be honest this whole 2.5HD stuff (or whatever it is called) doesn't appeal to my nostalgia, I think I was three when this game came out originally (or maybe four?) so a lot of these 2.5 games people gushed over (Octopath, Triangle etc) I was just like... whatever.

But the way Live a Live does it has just really sold me on it. It is mostly a 3D world, with pixel art characters drifting through it (and you get more detailed character models in battle scenes for bosses too), with much more variety than just drab brown fantasy settings. This is a lot of bright, primary, colours vibrantly spread throughout with a much larger variety of art assets (especially on a chapter by chapter basis), so it doesn't have that same dull, blurry, muddiness, I feel like a lot of these games in this style have.

@Pizzamorg Triangle Strategy was my favorite game this year, and the presentation was honestly on the bottom of the list for me in terms of aspects I liked about it.

But yeah, Live-A-Live looks to be the best implementation of HD-2D to date. DQIII also looked really vibrant, based on that initial footage, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

Once I have my SWOLED, I'll probably start looking for games that show off what it's capable of best.

@Ralizah
When's your estimated delivery date?

Be sure to transfer your profile when setting it up, since there are some games that can't transfer via cloud or even manually system to system. Even if they can do manually it would be a pain figuring out which ones. Lessons learned from my past mistakes. Ghosted my old Switch and gave to my brother, then realized I never transfered my Splatoon 2 save data. Probably a blessing in disguise though, since it made me pick it back up to start a new save and ended up binging 100 hrs.

I also did research and found that, even dimming the screen 50% barely produced an extra 10-15 min battery life. Probably has to do with how OLED works. Basically, don't be afraid to blast that screen brightness as much as you want. It won't really cost you anything notable battery wise, and we already have tests showing burn in isn't a concern either.

I also highly recommend running wired ethernet if you can. You're not getting the new dock, but that's OK. I actually got better results with the official adapter than the new dock. Not that much, but still, better is better. Makes online play and downloads so much more reliable. Though I understand it's not practically feasible for everyone (I had to pay electrician to run ethernet outside, down the length of house and up the side wall to 2nd story).

If you're OK with taking things apart, for $15 you can get Xbox Elite analog kit and swap out in your Pro Controller. I've always found the rubbery convex shape to be slippery when in use. The textured concave shape of the removable magnetic analogs feels incredible with so much more grip. And if they wear out, they pull off magnetically. Just swap out. I paid someone on Etsy to do it because I'm lazy and didn't wanna mess with it, but I watched a video and it's not hard.

@JaxonH Tomorrow, I think, although it could be pushed to Tuesday.

Oh yeah, transferring my profile before wiping the old one is why I never considered doing a trade-in deal when the OLED first released. Too much stuff isn't attached to the cloud.

Good to know about the brightness level and battery life. Even with the puny battery life of the og system, though, I tend to keep the brightness cranked up fairly high without major issue, so I doubt I'd feel any need to try and squeeze more time out of the OLED when it's giving the player... what, at least double the playtime they'd have with the original model? The better battery just means I don't need to rush the system to a dock for life support after a lengthy play session. It's going to be particularly useful for MHR: Sunbreak, which has just been KILLING my battery.

The appeal of the Switch for me is that I just take the game with me wherever, so I'm not too worried about not having access to an ethernet cable where I play the console

I actually have a Series X controller for my PC, and while I like it overall, I found the insanely concave stick caps to be uncomfortable. I'm assuming the Elite's cap design is similar.

With that said, I doubt I'll be doing much docked play for a while. Maybe I'll use the Pro some for tabletop play, but with this being an undocked upgrade, I'm going to want to play everything on the tablet for a while.

Found this in the clearance section at the local Target. You might want to check a store yourself to see if they've made the same mistake. It's still $59.99, but it's four days early.

https://i.imgur.com/0AQ6iCq.jpg

Been setting up my Switch OLED. Everything looks good so far. Can't wait to try out a game on this thing later.

@Ralizah Have you applied a screen protector yet? Switch screens have a nasty tendency to pick up fingerprints without them. I should know because when I got my new regular Switch back at Christmas, it caught them like no tomorrow (and especially when some of the games I play the most have built in touch screen functionality? That's not good whatsoever).

Nah. I'm sure I will soon, since I also applied screen protectors on both of my previous Switches, but right now I'm babying it and wiping it with a microfiber cloth every five minutes any way.

Oh my god, Tetris Effect is like a brand new game on SWOLED. The change in screen tech is transformative.

lmao so long, dock, because I'm probably never using you again.